Returning to Jeongdo Academy
"M-Mr. Sojin. Th-the bodies of those bastards have all been burned."
"Good work. Go on outside."
"Yes, sir!"
The man in the yellow headscarf dashed out of the tavern.
He was more competent than I’d expected.
I didn’t need to know his name.
Sumi refilled my cup.
"...Are you leaving now?"
"Yeah. I should."
There was no longer any threat to her.
I’d pulled up all the poisonous weeds, and the righteous faction’s men had already entered the village.
Of course, I hadn’t just been loafing around.
Over the past week, I’d steadily broken into the first flower realm of Ilwol Eumyang Singong.
It was time to really go.
Clink—
I finished the last of my drink and stood up.
"I’m going. Take care of yourself."
After offering that brief farewell, I turned away.
From behind me, the girl called out.
"Th-thank you! Mr. Sojin!!"
Her voice trembled with gratitude, full of aching sincerity.
But I never looked back.
I only lifted one hand in farewell.
A high-pitched voice rang out.
"If you’re going to grab him, now’s your chance, you know?"
I turned my head to the side.
There, smiling brightly, was the black-haired woman and my unfortunate enemy, Chiri.
I’d resented her plenty when she’d sided with Majin, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see her die.
"I’m fine."
"You’ll regret it later, you know?"
"...Just being able to look is enough for me."
"You’re seriously hopeless."
Chiri clicked her tongue once and said no more.
She really was a perceptive girl.
...
I watched until he was gone.
Staying where I was.
Without end.
*
Walking mountain paths was dangerous.
If you weren’t careful, you could end up stranded.
You could also run into wild beasts.
But the most dangerous thing of all was still running into people.
Especially mountain bandits, the so-called masters of the hills.
For travelers crossing the mountains, they were a source of pure terror.
Among them, the most infamous, cruel, and powerful bandits were called the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds...
And who would’ve thought it?
That man was me!
Smack!
"What are you muttering to yourself about? Hold your hands up properly."
"Y-yes! Sorry."
"Is this really all you’ve got?"
"I-it is."
Today was a bad day.
A brat had suddenly stormed my stronghold, and I’d mistaken him for some spoiled young master fresh out into the martial world. That was my mistake.
Well, at least I still have my head attached.
I turned my head slightly.
Near the chieftain’s seat, headless corpses were strewn all over the place.
"You didn’t happen to hide any elixirs or anything, did you?"
"......"
Fuck...?
The moment he casually brought up elixirs, my heart nearly dropped through the floor.
But who was I?
Was I not the chieftain of the Green Forest, a man who’d spent ten years making banditry his trade on this mountain?
I was a master of denial.
I even wore an expression so pitiful that wandering beggars from the Beggars’ Sect might’ve handed me a few coins out of sympathy.
"Great hero... I’m nothing more than a worthless man who only wrings toll money out of this tiny mountain. Why on earth would I have any elixirs?"
It was perfect acting.
So perfect that even if one of Shaolin’s divine monks, said to have insight reaching the heavens, had come to see it, he would’ve thought I’d been wronged.
"Hmm. Is that so?"
The bastard nodded as if he understood.
I’m alive.
He’d even let a few underlings live and go free, so there was hope for me too.
I had no idea where a monster like this had crawled out from, but the moment that brat had marched alone into the stronghold, I should have run.
Hadn’t the Green Forest King himself said it?
A lone master walking in is more dangerous than the Martial Alliance’s assault troops.
"But what’s this?"
The man pulled a bamboo tube from his robe.
"Huh?"
The bamboo tube tied together with brown cord looked horribly familiar.
W-why is that... in my vault...?
"I’ll ask again. You didn’t hide any more elixirs or anything, did you?"
The man grinned, and there was something ominous in the expression.
*
"Go on in."
As he passed through the city gate, he slipped the letter in his hand into his robe.
"Made it with time to spare."
The contents were about the Cheonjin Unit.
I’d spent some time recovering while searching for elixirs, so things had gotten close, but I still arrived on time.
In the vast square large enough to hold tens of thousands of people, he slowly looked around.
The grand, intricate buildings didn’t match the era.
No—what it really showed was just how much care had gone into constructing this enormous place.
Bigger than I thought.
Jeongdo Academy.
It was where the talented young disciples of the righteous factions gathered to train, readying themselves to stand against the foolish scum of the demonic and blood cults.
Behind the academy were training rooms and the dormitories for the students.
It was a long-established institution founded by the second Martial Alliance leader.
Jeongdo Academy was also one of the most important places for the next generation of the so-called prestigious righteous sects spread across the martial world.
For the sons and daughters of smaller sects, it was a chance to build ties with the disciples of the Nine Great Sects and the Eight Great Clans, or even catch their eye.
In that sense, Jeongdo Academy could be seen as a social arena before it was ever an educational institution.
All pointless, of course.
The novel Reincarnated as a Young Clan Head in Another World was suffocatingly frustrating.
Everyone had read it expecting a satisfying payoff, but they couldn’t endure it and dropped it halfway through.
And among all of it...
The most fucking obnoxious part was definitely the beginning.
Well, not anymore.
I stepped deeper into the academy.
Murmur, murmur.
As I walked the academy halls—
"Huh? Isn’t that Jin Sojin?"
"What? I heard he went missing..."
"What the hell is he showing his face for...!"
"He was alive?"
As the heir of the Guangdong Jin Family, one of the Eight Great Clans, there were plenty of people who recognized him.
And with a face among the most handsome in the Central Plains, he was hard to forget after seeing him even once.
I couldn’t hear everything clearly, but the surrounding whispers still reached me.
As expected of a place that trained the future pillars of the righteous path, every academy student had at least a basic level of internal energy.
"Why the hell did he come back?"
"I heard that bastard tried to rape a commoner. What kind of face does he have showing up here? He’s an embarrassment to the righteous path!"
After escaping from the cave, Cheon Sojin spent half a year training with all his might under the guidance of the Sword King.
However, he was clumsy to the point of being almost pathetic.
Rumors always grow bigger. Good rumors, bad rumors—it didn’t matter.
Especially when the subject was the heir of one of the Eight Great Clans.
Anything sensational spread even faster.
"If you’re going to inherit a sect, how can you be this slow on the uptake? Didn’t that turn out to be a lie ages ago? Why are you still saying it?"
"N-no? I knew that. I was just testing whether you knew."
"Yeah, sure you did."
If a dangerous weed is going to grow, it’s better to cut it early.
Even though my quick response had exposed my innocence, a few people were still shooting me filthy looks.
Suspicion, jealousy, ridicule—those things were all packed into their stares.
But I wasn’t free enough to waste time on those trashy nobodies.
"So then, he really was kicked out of the Jin Family?"
"That part’s true. Definitely. I heard he lost not to Sword Phoenix, but to that girl on her own."
"Hahahahaha!! He’s a total idiot, isn’t he...!"
The moment I looked at him, the bastard froze solid.
"What? You were just talking and then stopped? Why are you sweating now too?"
To be taken down by something this pathetic... There are always people who’re below average no matter where you go.
It was just that this particular fool was especially low-grade.
I kept walking toward the main hall.
By the time Cheon Sojin returned to Jeongdo Academy, the rumors had already grown beyond control.
By rumor alone, he’d become practically a public enemy of the martial world.
Jeongdo Academy said they couldn’t expel him without hard evidence, but that wasn’t the kind of story that would land well with the righteous youngsters who believed themselves to be justice incarnate.
In the end, he was accused of attempted rape of a female student and expelled from Jeongdo Academy.
Only then did he shed bloody tears and search for wanderers and menma, but—
Too late.
There’s a right time for everything.
After that, as best he could, he hid his identity and carried out his own brand of righteousness under the nickname of the Strange Hero.
It was one thing to act righteously, but at the very least...
"Hey!"
In front of the main hall,
the bastard who suddenly blocked my path shoved a piglike face that looked like it had been rolled through the gutter right in front of me. There was no one else around.
"You little shit, Jin Sojin. Your big brother called for you—where do you think you’re going?"
He had a weird face with a cross-shaped scar on his head.
A cross-shaped scar?
"I don’t see those righteous ladies who used to protect you today, either. Where did they go? What happened to them? Heh heh..."
"You’re Jin Rinmu?"
"That’s right, you idiot! If this bastard had at least hurt his head...!"
Thwack!!
He made a truly piglike sound.
The bastard didn’t even get to finish his sentence before he flew through the air.
A huge body soaring through the sky was an absurdly strange sight.
"Whew!"
That felt refreshing.
Why the hell hadn’t I done this sooner?
Jin Rinmu of the Jin Rin Clan.
Even in Jeongdo Academy, which belonged to the righteous path, it was still only a miniature version of the martial world.
And that meant power was needed.
Jin Rinmu had especially been one of the bastards who tormented the original protagonist, so he’d come at exactly the right time.
For beasts, the whip is medicine.
Thinking about dosing him with a little more medicine, I turned my head—
And in front of a beautiful woman with black hair, Jin Rinmu was sprawled on the ground.
I’d sent him flying all the way to her feet.
"Miss, are you all right? I’m terribly sorry."
"I’m fine. ...Are you perhaps the Sojae, Jin Sojin?"
Seeing her say my name, it looked like she knew who I was.
I didn’t answer, only gave a small nod.
Her eyes moved slowly over me from the tips of my feet to the top of my head.
It was the look of someone evaluating me.
"Heh... So the rumors really aren’t worth believing."
She said it like there was some deeper meaning there, but since no one came to mind immediately, she probably wasn’t very important.
"Miss, in any case, I’m glad you weren’t hurt. I have business with that man, so would you step aside?"
My bow was so perfectly righteous, so textbook orthodox, that she seemed to like it.
"Hehe... All right. Then I’ll see you again next time."
She let the corners of her lips lift in a faint smile, then disappeared.
*
After finishing Jin Rinmu’s lesson, I arrived in front of the main hall.
The massive lecture hall could easily hold a thousand people.
It had been a long road.
The reason I’d come back to Jeongdo Academy wasn’t just to obtain elixirs, but to sever old enmities as well.
"So you’re asking when Jin Sojin is supposed to arrive, and we’re just supposed to wait?"
The moment I reached for the door, a sharp female voice cut through the air.
It was a voice I remembered from before.
##